Playing Persona 5 Royal This Month Has Been an Experience

To say that 2020 has been a rollercoaster would be an understatement. We’re dealing with worldwide pandemic that has left many people without a job and exposed just how easily the world can be crippled. There have been many amazing games so far this year, but the one that I’ve enjoyed the most is Persona 5 Royal. I’ve been playing it ever since April and I’ve loved every second of the game. While I’m still not done with the game (though I am very close), playing it over the past month has been quite a surreal experience due to just how closely the game’s story mirrors things that are happening here in the U.S. It’s also made me hopeful for the country.

Spoilers for Persona 5 Royal follow! I’ll be talking specifically about the Shido Arc and the Yaldabaoth Arc, so if you haven’t reached these parts yet, I heavily advise that you return to this article after you do.

For those who don’t know, Persona 5 Royal follows a group of high school students who call themselves the Phantom Thieves. They seek to reform society by changing the hearts of people that are corrupt and abusing their power for their own benefit. They do this by traveling into people’s distorted cognitions (called Palaces) and stealing their desires that cause them to be such corrupt individuals. This causes their targets to have a change of heart, leading to them confessing all of their wrongdoings and attempting to become a better person. Throughout the game the group takes on a number of people, but there’s one main villain in the shadows that the group is unknowingly up against.

Near the end of November, the Phantom Thieves discover that the person who has been setting them up to be demonized by the public and killed is a politician named Masayoshi Shido. He appears a few times over the course of the game, but doesn’t take center stage until now. While Shido doesn’t have the abilities that you all do, one of his accomplices does. With their help, he kills anybody that’s a possible threat to him and his political ambitions. In addition, Shido also had ties to your previous targets and has been using both his political and supernatural influences to make them do what he wants and help further his own agenda.

Shido’s end goal is to win an upcoming election and become the Prime Minister of Japan. Once in that position of power, he plans to steer the country in a direction that only benefits him. It’s why his Palace takes the form of a cruise ship that’s sailing through a flooded Japan, destroying anything it comes in contact with.

If all of this sounds somewhat familiar, that’s because it’s currently happening for real. Ever since his inauguration, the President has had a negative effect on the entire world. Thing here in the U.S. have been in a state of increasing unrest for years, but they’ve finally reached a tipping point due to the actions of the President ever since the pandemic started. With an election right around the corner that will determine the fate of this country and the many people that live here for years to come, things couldn’t be any more dire than they are right now. The President has consistently shown that he does not actually care about the wellbeing of the citizens of the country.

Instead, he simply cares only about himself and wants to remain on top of everyone else. He actively fuels the fires of division in the country, when he should instead be encouraging unity. The only difference between the President and Shido from is the fact that Shido puts on a facade for the public to make them believe that he actually cares about them, whereas our President is up front about who he is and what he believes in.

Even when the Phantom Thieves manage to change Shido’s heart and he confesses on national television to the country, the people who work with him conjure up a story about him being sick and make their own plans to keep the public on Shido’s side. Surprisingly, it works! It doesn’t matter to the majority the public that Shido committed numerous crimes. They either don’t believe what he said, or feel like he’s still the right person to become Prime Minister of Japan. As I played through this section of the game, I couldn’t help but see the real world parallels and become enraged by everything that was happening in both the game and the real world.

Following Shido’s confession and the lack of change in the public’s perception of him, the Phantom Thieves realize that they have to change the heart of society as a whole by going into Mementos, the shared Palace of the public. They end up having to face off against a God named Yaldabaoth that was taking away the desires of the public to go out and do what they really wanted to do, while also planning to destroy the real world by merging it with Mementos. As the world becomes more and more hellish due to this, the Phantom Thieves take on Yaldabaoth and defeat him, successfully changing the hearts of the public and preventing Shido from winning the election.

After these two story arcs wrapped up, there were a number of emotions running through me. I was relieved that we were able to stop a corrupt individual from gaining more power. I felt empowered because stopping Shido was akin to stopping the President. Most of all though, I was hopeful. Not just for the characters in Persona 5 Royal, but also for everyone in the real world. The Phantom Thieves rose up against a dangerous politician who was going to lead their country to destruction and not only stopped him, but got the rest of society to make sure that he wasn’t elected. They did what was seemingly impossible and successfully reformed society. If they could manage to do that, then we can do the same for our country.

Sure the Phantom Thieves are fictional characters and have abilities that we never will, but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. We can make sure that the U.S. goes down the path towards a better future with this upcoming election by going out to vote, and beginning to fix the many issues that are deeply rooted in the fiber of the country. While it will take some time, we too can reform society and turn our country into the place that it truly should be.